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Monday, 3 September 2012

Indonesian island hopping

Bali had been great, but it can be
quite hectic and we were ready to leave for something a little
slower-paced. So it was time to embark on our first bit of
island hopping, something I'd read about, been advised about (how
doable it is), and that I'd casually mentioned to people: "We'll
be doing some island-hopping around Indonesia." But in my mind
it had always been something of a far off fantasy, an unknown entity.

Then we were heading for the Padang Bai public
ferry, our lives in our backpacks and our magic piece of paper from Pesona Bintang* Tours in
hand. We went back to the office at the agreed
time and the nice guy ushered us over to board the ferry, where we
waved the 'ticket' at a couple of official looking guys who pointed
'onward'.

To get over to the Gilis from Bali in
one day you have to be on the 9am ferry from Padang Bai so you can
make it over to Lembar and then up to the north of Lombok in time to
make the boats going over from Bangsal to the Gilis.

We'd gotten to the ferry quite early so
managed to nab a couple of chairs upstairs on the open air deck. It
began to fill up around us with a good few Westerners laden with
their own backpacks and lots of locals too. A lot of people ended
up sitting on the floor. While we were still in port, women prowled the decks hawking food and drinks like instant coffee, bananas (small and green but firm and sweet) and hot nasi goreng wrapped in brown wax paper. I hadn't wanted coffee, but
after the 150th emphatic call from the women I suddenly
needed one and caved (advertising works!) I bought two coffees and a
few of the little bananas; the coffee was ridiculously sweet
(some local sachet with sugar included) and Dave had to finish mine
before I slipped into a diabetic coma. Once the ferry was ready to
depart, the saleswomen vacated for shore and we were off.

Padang Bai harbour

Sitting at our table, we got
chatting to a couple of Indonesian guys about various stuff like the price and strength of local
cigarettes, and other cultural differences. This was also the first time we noticed the odd Asian
phenomenon of men surreptitiously taking photos of young, beautiful
Western women on their digital cameras. Bit creepy.

We also passed
the time reading (me still ploughing through On The Road; a good
book but not one I couldn't put down so it was taking me a while) and snapping photos.

Gunung Agung on Bali, gently smoking away

It took about three hours to get to Lembar and then we sat for an hour waiting for the ferry in front
of us to unload before we could even dock.

Our Lonely Planet
guidebook had warned of the 'gauntlet' you had to negotiate at the
port, where hordes of guys hassle you, trying to take your baggage and
get it into their vehicles so you'd travel with them, and that the
best thing to do was put your head down and get out of there. So when
we disembarked we completely ignored the large crowd of Indonesian
men shouting and bustling and walked straight past them towards the
car park where we hoped to find our onward shuttle bus to Bangsal.
With it not being immediately apparent, we asked the Tourist office for assistance; the very helpful man put a phone call in to
the Pesona Bintang representative and along came a guy with a big
frown on his face saying angrily to Dave “I call you! I say
Bintang ticket!” - we'd been so freaked out by the Lonely Planet
that we'd walked straight past the person who was trying to help us. To
be fair, he wasn't communicating any clear instructions and was
rather lost in the scrum, but the warnings did seem a bit
over-dramatic considering they almost caused us to miss our connection. Anyway, no harm done and we were directed to our
little bus. The magic paper worked again and we begun our trip north
to Bangsal.

The ride was great; there were about
half a dozen of us, plus the driver and the guide, so there was
plenty of room. I donned my headphones, turned up the music, and gazed out of the window at
the passing scenery of this new island, our second stop on our year
away. More Indonesian life to witness.

We stopped briefly at the
outskirts of Mataram so those who didn't have their tickets to the Gilis could buy them. After a couple of
hours, we arrived in Bangsal and once again showed our magic paper to
a guy who ushered us away from the hordes of youngsters (including
the others on our bus) who were heading for the 'party island' of
Gili Trawangan.

After a little while of waiting around
without much of an idea of what was happening - things kept being said
about having to wait for more people to fill the boat or that the
water was too choppy - we got chatting to a European yoga
instructor who was living on Gili Air with her dive master boyfriend.
She told us that this charade was a frustratingly common occurrence
but after a while we were directed to a small wooden outrigger with
about a dozen other people. A short chug over the Lombok Strait to
Gili Air and we'd made it! About eight hours of travel, and by
initial impressions well worth it.

A man driving a pony and trap, costing us 50,000
rupiah for two people and luggage, took us on a 10 minute ride to
Harmony Beach House, where we'd made a reservation with the owner
Colin. There are two rooms at Harmony, up some steps on the first
floor above their bar and restaurant, and they're basic: small and
pretty open to the elements, with a double bed, mosquito net, a
table lamp, a fan and a couple of little bits of furniture. The two
toilets and showers were downstairs in an outhouse, 50% of which were
out of order. We dumped our stuff and, as I was pretty hungry after
our long journey from Bali, headed next door to Legend bar – a red,
yellow and green decorated reggae joint that plays Bob Marley on loop –
for some dinner and a couple of beers.

There was quite a large balcony area at Harmony, and as there was no one occupying the other room,
we chilled out there for a couple of hours before turning in.

We'd heard from Justin and Ros in Ubud
that Bintang* Beach Bungalows was a great place to stay on Gili
Air, so the next morning, while I was battling with the shower at
Harmony, Dave set out to find it and take a look at their offerings.
Under an hour later he returned and asserted “Pack your bags, we're
moving”. We settled up and checked out of Harmony, carried our
belongings on a three or four minute walk to Bintang, and were shown
a couple of different rooms by the friendly, helpful boss Andi. We
settled on a cute airy little bungalow, with a high ceiling and white
walls, its own veranda and outdoor bathroom, a fan, mozzy net,
little table and dressing table. The price was 150,000 rupiah per
night (about £10) including breakfast - the same price as
Harmony had been. Thank goodness for the recommendation for this
place, as it was such better value!

A little about the island itself. Gili
Air is a tiny paradise! You can walk around it in about 90 minutes
and there's no motorised transport so there's only bicycles and the pony
and traps. It's the perfect picture postcard spot: white sand
beaches, turquoise oceans, and spectacular sunsets behind distant Gunung Agung. The sea is beautiful; clean and crystal clear. At
low tide there are pools in the sand flats where loads of little
creatures live – crabs, anemones, starfish etc. At night the skies
are full of stars as there's very little light pollution and you can
see the Milky Way, Jupiter and Mars with just the naked eye. There
are plenty of bars and restaurants – pretty quiet while we were
there as we'd arrived at the end of high season – and there's an
ATM and some shops for sundries.

This is the place we'd call home for
the next month.* In a few Asian countries there is no enforceable copyright law so if something becomes popular, like Bintang beer for instance, it's ok for other businesses to use the name. In some places it might mean you ask a taxi driver to take you to the Hilton and you're dropped at a tiny guesthouse instead of a huge plush hotel, and allover Indonesia various incarnations of 'Bintang' pop up.

2 comments:

We certainly found throughout our travels in Asia that the Lonely Planet guidebooks have to be taken with a large pinch of salt: they over-sell places that we found pretty uninspiring but also talk up the 'hassle' that you can get. In this case the guidebook had made us paranoid to the extreme that we almost missed our onwards travel!